Biography
The first evidence of the existence of the Tenuta San Leonardo is from the fifth century A.D. when is recounted that Autari, king of the Lombards, had married Teodolina, daughter of the king of Bavaria. In the maps of the 10th century A.D. San Leonardo is already recognizable. It was at that time that monks arrived, established a small convent and began to cultivate the vine.
After many centuries as church property, the estate was sold to the Gresti family in the 18th century, and came into the hands of the Guerrier Gonzaga marquises by female descent in the 19th century.
San Leonardo is in the town of Borghetto all’Adige, one of the first townships of the lower Trentino in the Adige river valley near the Veneto. Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga became the director of the property after his father, Anselmo Guerrieri Gonzaga, and he is now assisted by his son, who bears the same name as his grandfather. The estate has always sought to achieve the highest possible quality, true, concrete, and perceptible. The means to achieve the goal are a rational viticulture which achieves the maximum with the various vineyard plots and grape varieties, and cellar practices which are, at the same time, rational and natural. The sole goal is to conserve and maximize the quality potential present in the grapes when they are harvested. Over the course of time, the vineyards have been periodically renewed and replanted in order to have, at all times, a certain number of old vines capable of producing fine wine (the young vines are utilized for wines which are immediately pleasurable, just as in Bordeaux). The symbol of the estate is San Leonardo, a well studied blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot; after a lengthy period of skin contact, the wine is run off its skins and aged for at least two years in French oak barrels, then aged a further two years after bottling before release. An elegant wine, rich, supple, sumptuous, which has nothing to envy in comparison to the grand crus of Bordeuax. The “second wine” of the house is Villa Gresti, a Merlot with a small percentage of Carmenère, a wine of striking finesse, soft tannins, and roundness on the palate.